Draco the Death Eaters and Voldemort (was: Re: Draco's culpability...)

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 139995

Hi--I've been lurking for a while, but hope this is a reasonable 
place to jump in.  It just seems like in this thread the trouble 
isn't that people have different ideas about what happened, but that 
you're approaching completely different questions that have nothing 
to do with each other.

> > Betsy Hp:
> > <snip> A killer would have worked on something that kills.  
> > Draco worked on opening a door.  
> 
> Alla:
> Draco worked on opening the door, which led something or 
> somebody who kills to Hogwarts. Very same thing in my mind. It 
> is not like he worked on opening the door just for the fun if 
> it, he knew perfectly well what will come out of this door, 
> IMO.
> 
> So, I am not quite sure why he gets a pass from you since he 
> used less deadly means which led to the very same end as if
> he would work on a bomb for Dumbledore,

I don't think he *does* get a pass from her (correct me if I'm 
wrong, of course, Betsy).  Her point isn't that working on the 
cabinet has nothing to do with DD getting killed.  What Betsy is 
doing, from what I read in the thread, is not trying to absolve 
Draco of responsibility that is obviously his, but focusing more 
on the meaning the act in the context of his story and character.  
The fact that he focuses on fixing the cabinet is very important 
in terms of what's happening to him, because even though this is 
part of the assassination attempt it still shows Draco trying to 
avoid the actual murder he's supposed to commit, because he is 
slowly learning what murder really is, and developing a horror 
of it. The DEs are supposed to be there to give him alone a clear 
shot at DD.

> Alla:
> I thought that Katie and Ron and eventually Dumbledore who 
> suffered the most for the path Draco took. As to Dumbledore's 
> right, well as I said upthread, I believe it was within 
> Dumbledore's right to forgive Draco for assassination attempt 
> on him, but not on Katie and Ron.
> 
> I am talking specifically about moral aspect, because maybe 
> indeed Dumbledore had some legal authority, I am not sure.

This is true, but I think that's why JKR has DD say how no great 
harm has been done.  Objectively, it's up to Katie and Ron to 
forgive or not forgive Draco, and almost killing someone is 
certainly not "no real harm done."  But I think JKR is using DD 
to direct our understanding of what's at stake here.  She's 
purposefully left Ron and Katie with no long lasting affects.  
They really are fine.  Ron is not focused on bringing his 
poisoner to justice.  Draco actually is suffering more than they 
are-this is canon.  Ron's having a pretty good year.  Katie 
doesn't remember anything much.  Draco is falling apart.  Now, 
of course their being okay doesn't wipe out his guilt--they were 
saved by pure luck.  It's just that storywise everything seems to 
be telling me that this isn't about wrongs done to Katie and Ron 
that must be righted. 

In terms of the story, the attempted murders are important to a) 
show Harry there's a murder attempt going on and b) give Draco a 
taste of real killing.  When he faces Dumbledore this isn't his 
first attempt at murder, so he knows exactly why he's hesitant.  
Without Ron and Katie (and perhaps his own near-murder via Harry's 
spell) he might still hold back, but I don't think he'd look so 
nauseous.  He put the necklace plan in motion and Katie went to 
St. Mungo's.  In March something he'd done months before that he 
probably thought just got confiscated suddenly pops up again, 
almost killing Ron.  As weird as it seems to consider the near 
deaths of two students simply part of another students' character 
development, within this series I don't think it's that out of 
the ordinary.  Similarly, I don't feel cheated that Harry wasn't 
expelled for his Sectumsempra.

Bill is the one person who carries lasting physical scars as a 
result of what Draco's done, but even with him JKR was careful to 
not make him a werewolf and not make him dead (which Draco thinks 
he is--his voice going up an octave when he speaks of it, much as 
Neville's voice goes high when he talks about Moody's class on 
Crucio).  He was even hurt by Fenrir, whom Draco did not intend to 
be there.  He shows up after Draco's aborted choice to lower his 
wand, and Draco speaks up (for the last time in canon) to assure 
DD he didn't bring Greyback in on purpose (as opposed to defiantly 
letting DD think he'd done it on purpose--he's begun to swing 
towards DD by then: appearing a cold DE is no longer a priority).

Again, that's not to say "it's not Draco's fault" what happened to 
Bill.  I'm just saying that it seems like the author is going 
somewhere very specific with this story. She's getting Draco to 
the point where he's on the edge, finally understanding mortality 
and ready to make an actual informed choice based on he himself 
alone.  

> > Betsy Hp:
> > First of all, it's *exactly* like he was being held at 
> > gunpoint. 
> 
> Alla:
> Well, one can look at it like that sure, but it is not a fact, 
> because I see no sign of any duress in Draco bragging to his 
> friends on the train.

I think it is a fact.  We know Voldemort has threatened to kill 
him and his family.  Draco even speaks of the threat in a scene 
where he thinks he's alone.  It seems like one of those face 
value things to me.  Draco on the train to Hogwarts is a 
completely different person from the Draco of only a few months 
later.  He thinks killing will be do-able (morally speaking and 
physically). Voldemort has perhaps not even threatened him yet 
(or if he has, the reality has not sunk in). At some point Draco 
does wake up to the reality, and that includes noticing that he 
and his mother being held at gunpoint.  To us readers it may seem 
simple to go to DD to make it all better, but I don't think that's 
realistic for Draco.  Even if Draco believed DD would help him, 
he'd have good reason to think he couldn't.  

Whatever his thinking, it seems like this is the situation the 
author has tried to put the character in in order to make his 
choice a clear one: kill or be killed.  First she strips away his 
delusions that this is a glorious job, then forces him to stick 
with it even then through threats.  Having Dumbledore swoop in 
gets her away from the very moment of choice she's working 
towards,imo.  We can't judge him against what we think he should 
have done, or what we would have done, knowing what we do, if we 
want to understand him.  I think if we're analyzing the actual 
story we have to only look at what he does and why.

To take another example of someone in that type of situation, 
Peter swore allegiance to the Order, but when it came down to it 
he chose to side with Voldemort and let his friends be killed.  
Then he chose to kill to save himself.  This all probably being 
after Peter, like Draco, had gotten a taste of the reality of the 
situation and learned what he would really do when push came to 
shove.  Peter, too, no doubt enthusiastically accepted the task 
of being in the Order at the time.  
 
> Alla:
> I KNOW what I want for Draco, that is if he is truly remorseful 
> of course. I liked Phoenixgod suggestion about stripping Draco 
> of all his wealth of course. That would be very neat for dear 
> Draco to go poor and finally feel how hard that was for Ron.
> 
> But I know what I want to see even more - I want Draco to face 
> Katie and Ron and beg for their forgiveness. That is exactly 
> what I want to see Snape doing, come to think of it - beg for 
> Harry forgiveness for making him an orphan, but I doubt that 
> especially as to Snape I am going to get my wish.

I don't see what this kind of punishment means for canon.  In HBP 
JKR gave Draco a story about someone who'd been trying to be a 
certain thing all his life, and who now realizes the horror of 
what he's wished for.  He is having to face the truth about 
himself and his choices--he's having to make choices for the first 
time in his life, based on who he really is and wants.  He's grown 
up, basically.  He will, I suspect, have to make retribution for 
the things he has done.  But I also think Draco's sixth year 
suffering went quite a bit deeper than wearing hand-me-down 
clothes. Looking ahead the main question for me is to wonder what 
he may do next, not how he will be punished.

> Alla:
> The small difference of course is that I don't remember twins 
> planning assacination attempt on Montague.

I'm not sure it's so much better to be killed by a planned 
assassin rather than someone who just cared so little about me 
they hurt me and didn't care.  I don't know how the law would 
come down on DD's death, but I think the twins would be considered 
more responsible for whatever happened to Montague as the people 
who physically hurt him than Draco would be for DD, whom he did 
not kill even when surrounded by DEs.  He would be more 
responsible for what happened to Katie and Ron.

But it's a story, not a trial. It's not, imo, about punishment or 
making people suffer. The twins will probably not be punished for 
what happened to Montague except the way the text has punished 
them: they showed Draco the way into the castle. That's why I get 
nervous about even thinking about what I think should happen to 
characters or what they deserve, because I wouldn't think the 
story would give me what I needed.  It gets back to judging things 
against what I think should happen, rather than reading what does 
happen and seeing what that means.  It's not that the one shouldn't 
ever be done, but they're two different things.
 
-m